Hello, you are listening to Second City Sermons,
a ministry of Second City Church in Midtown Harrisburg.
It's our hope that these sermons will draw you
more into the life of following God, Father,
Son and Holy Spirit. Please consider coming and
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sermon. God bless. Lord God, we do thank you
for today Sunday this resurrection day Thank
you for gathering us together Or to worship you
we thank you for your word. We thank you for
the promise of your Holy Spirit Who is with us
Jesus tells us who guides us who directs us a
Spirit of God, please bless us now as we turn
and consider you in this text before us hear
us we pray amen all right our text is going to
be the New Testament passage we've been in the
Gospels we're going to be in this New Testament
passage of Acts chapter 1 many of you know this
but acts I mentioned this actually in a in the
education hour before service but acts is really
the second part of the Luke acts duo Luke could
be called the axe of Jesus, and axe could be
called, often it's called the axe of the apostles,
but it could be called the axe of the Holy Spirit.
And it's kind of funny for us because we have
them in our Bibles as Matthew, Mark, Luke, John
axe, and John gets in the way. I don't know who
did that. We should have been Matthew, Mark,
John, Luke axe, so that you knew Luke and axe
go together. As you might imagine, When one is
thinking of preaching about the role of the Holy
Spirit there is so much that could be said There
are many fine books on the work of the Holy Spirit
actually Bruce Weatherly I just read his book
that he is having published in and much of it
is about the work of the Holy Spirit and It sort
of feels a little bit I will say this and this
is often the case when you preach But I will
say this it felt a little bit more this way this
week overwhelming. There's just so much that
could be done and studied and said and all this.
It's sort of like when you start to clean your
house on Saturday mornings with your kids, as
I did yesterday, and you begin and you go, where
do we stop? What do we focus on? I want you to
think for a moment of all the things that you
might That we might want to do as a church or
maybe that we should do as a church just think
about that for a moment, okay Should we do might
be be about as a church My guess is even if I
just gave you that short moment you thought of
things like preaching the gospel and caring for
the poor Supporting local and foreign missions,
the expansion of the good news of Jesus. Maybe
administering the sacraments, celebrating baptism
and communion. Maybe creating spaces where we
can gather together and engage with God's word
together. Allow him to ask questions of us and
to dig into the Bible together and do this. as
a body. Maybe you thought of things like evangelism,
just simply we should be sharing the good news
of Jesus with others. Maybe you think of raising
our children, and actually the truth is that
even if we take these big categories and then
we kind of break them down, we could spend all
day long, I could break you up into groups, we
could spend all day long just brainstorming what
do we do as the church? How do we do it? And
the same thing could be said for us as individual
Christians, right? what are the things that a
Christian should be doing and Of course you can
think of things like loving God and loving our
neighbor and then we could just take that and
we can just break it down We could spend a long
long time about being peacemakers and those who
seek justice and walk humbly with God and then
we could think of just the the fruits of the
spirit how they're to be present with us and
be patient kind and self -controlled and all
the rest and When you start to kind of do that,
there's this sense, I have this sense of just,
it is a little overwhelming, one. But then I
also have this sense of, let's get to it! Let's
go! It's kind of eagerness, urgency. And of course,
we should be those who are eager to share the
good news with others, eager to serve others,
engage with the Word with others, train our children
in the ways of the Lord. But really, there's
just a lot. And I think that sometimes our impulse
is just like, let's go, come on, come on, let's
go. We've said quite a bit, it is Pentecost Sunday.
Pentecost Sunday is remembering the 50 days after
Easter when the Holy Spirit came upon the people
there waiting for Him. We remember the descent
of God just as Israel actually, 50 days after
they were saved out from slavery in Egypt. were
with God there at Sinai. God descended there
on Sinai. Once you think about that, they had
been saved. They were to be brought into the
promised land. They were to be the blessing that
God had promised Abraham to them that they would
be, right? The blessing to the nations that you
make them a great people and give them a land
and that through them all the nations of the
earth will be blessed. Then he pauses them, pauses
them for a little while at Sinai. and he descends
on the mountain. Loud trumpets, clouds, smoke
and fire, just as he did again in Acts 2. But
I want you to think about that. So much was to
be done. God bring in the kingdom, just bring
us to the promised land. He pauses them. So much
to do to be the instrument of God's blessing
in the world, right? Our text this morning, Acts
Acts 1 and I chose this because we have been
in this little series since Easter with these
narratives of Jesus with his disciples after
the resurrection and we've been looking at at
how he interacts with them post -resurrection
and As we've lived through these stories what
we've really been saying is what does it mean
for us? How does this shape us as a resurrected
people? What does it mean to be the church in
light of these narratives of Jesus with his disciples
after the resurrection? How are we resurrected
people? And the first thing we read there in
verse four, I skipped the first few verses because
they're really just kind of ties into the book
of Luke. But there in verse four, what we read
is says, and while staying with them, he ordered
them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait
for the promise of the Father. He says, wait.
I've done this great work, but wait. And I kind
of want to take on this text and this morning
this idea of the reality of the spirit with these
two, kind of two points, okay? The first one
is this, is that there is an understandable urgency,
sort of that. And then there is the essential
waiting, okay? An understandable urgency and
an understandable waiting. So first an understandable
urgency. So he tells his disciples, don't depart,
don't go. Why would he do that? Well, maybe as
I've kind of alluded to, it is kind of, you know,
helping us to remember what God did when he brought
his people out and he met with them there in
Sinai. But why would he do that? Well, I can
think of a lot of reasons why they might depart,
why they might want to go, okay? The first reason...
If you hearken back with me to Easter Sunday
if you were here is that they had actually engaged
with the true fantasy The thing that made the
most sense of the world the story of stories
that resonated most with the way the world is
Declared the world to be really good and deeply
bad If you've been around for a while you have
probably heard me say that one of the reasons
why I am a Christian Which I think is just worth
asking yourself occasionally, but I'm a Christian.
One of the reasons why I'm a Christian is because
the Christian story makes the most sense of the
world. I don't know how you cannot look out in
the world and say that this world is deeply lovely.
Each person in me is incredibly beautiful. And
you have to hold that. with this other reality
that things are not remotely how they are intended
to be, that everyone has in them actually unbelievable
darkness too, that the world is so messed up
and you have to hold these things together. You
have to say, how do I make sense of this? And
these disciples had actually engaged with the
thing that makes the most sense of this, God
himself dying and yet doing so willingly for
the good of the world. They had engaged with
the greatest story of all. And if you hear a
good story, do you tell that story? Of course
you do. Let me tell you about the movie I just
saw. Let me tell you about this book. Oh man,
my kid did something so funny. Of course you
do. There's an urgency to say, I just engaged
with one of the most amazing story ever. You
need to hear it. So that would be the first reason
why they're like just a little bit, you know,
unable to sit still. The second reason is that
they had been with the Lord and because they
had been with the Lord, he had brought hope to
their places of despair with his word. He had
met them in their despair and brought his words
of hope. He had opened to them the scriptures
and they'd seen how he and his suffering and
in his resurrection was the whole point of it.
The whole point of the scriptures is found in
Jesus. He meets them in their place of despair
and he brings them their hope They had witnessed
the bread broken for them and been fed with the
spiritual food that nourishes their languishing
hearts and The truth that God came for them.
He died for them He loved them while they were
still enemies and strangers and far off and in
their despair and That meant that they had this
real experience that the slog of life Right the
long kind of journey slow journey making their
way back to Emmaus if you will with its many
many many many reasons to hang your head and
To think about giving up and to live a hopeless
life Was met by God with them in the flesh Which
was to say that he knows our sorrow He knows
our despair He's one who is acquainted with grief,
Isaiah tells us. And yet he brings his hope,
his resurrected presence into that. And that
again is something that you would want to run
to others who have lost children, who have mental
illness that plagues them, who were torn from
their children or from their parents because
of substance abuse and all kinds of other things.
You would want to run into this world and say,
I know how bad it is. The despair is real, and
yet God brings his hope into this world. We worship
a God who does not stand far off away from it,
but comes into it. He conquers it, taking on
death, conquering it. He was despised. He was
rejected. He knows that. This is the God we proclaim,
and he brings hope into that world. These disciples
would have been antsy. Let's do something about
this. Let's... Share this of course they need
to be told not to depart It would have been like
Joseph of Arimathea right who had known the bad
was bad Like the Mary's there at the empty tomb
who knew how sweet Not the sense that covered
death were but life after death is They were
like the two on the road to Emmaus just like
you and I have been on that road to Emmaus who
plotted along thinking all was lost and yet we
were brought the hope of resurrection. But there
are other reasons. Let's keep going through them.
So we kind of rehearse this Easter tide. Third
reason they wanted to depart, no doubt, was that
their doubt had been engaged with lovingly and
they had grown in faith and belief. How lovely
is the story of Thomas and Jesus? How lovely
is it, right? Jesus meets him and his doubt and
he doesn't despise him because of it He doesn't
toss him off as though he weren't truly a disciple
because he doubts But he lovingly says look touch
You remember just two weeks ago we looked at
the end of the gospel of Matthew the Great Commission
How even right there before the words of the
Great Commission, sorry, Matthew tells us, some
doubt it. And they're still sent, they're still
commissioned out into the world. And you and
I can think today of how often almost any community
that you exist in cannot stand sort of the doubters
who question the community narrative, right?
I mean, you and I know how particularly technology
has... exacerbated this, how our feedback loops
are just coming before us all the time. How much
social destruction happens because of this, but
also how quickly one is outside of the community
if they simply doubt the narrative of that community.
And Jesus lovingly engages that doubt and he
brings greater faith in the midst of that doubt.
Jesus does long for our belief just as he did
the disciples in the storm that we heard earlier
this spring. He invites us into a greater life
of deeper faith and deeper belief, but he does
not despise our doubt. And that would have been
radical then and it's radical now. And they would
have then said, we need to tell others about
this kind of God who comes among us, who rises
from the dead and yet even welcomes us in our
doubt and commissions us out to the world. Okay,
another reason. why they would have wanted to
depart, to go out, is that they had been a restored
people because they had been restored by Jesus.
And how much do we need the restoring work of
Jesus? We live in a way, sort of a default way
out of our failures and the ways that we've been
sinned against. The default way that we engage
with the world is out of our failures and the
ways that others have failed us I Know many of
you have engaged on some level with the personality
typing system the Enneagram somebody once asked
me recently. Do you guys talk about that as a
church? I was like I try not to But there's a
lot of good there and I think one of its strengths
is that it names how this is true, how so often
we live actually out of sort of coping with the
reality of how we've been sinned against and
how we are sinners. But why I say that is because
we actually tell these stories primarily of how
others have failed us and how we have failed
others. And Jesus actually invites us into naming
that, but living a new story. Jesus with Peter
right there on the beach having just cooked the
fish over the fire. Restoring him as he restores
us. We so often live in fear and scarcity and
in shame in what Jesus does in restoring us as
he gives us new story with the forgiveness of
sins where he gives us abundance, where he gives
us love that covers our shame and our fear. Because
perfect love always casts out fear. And they
would have wanted to share that. Okay, one last
reason why they were urgent, why they had this
urgency and it would have been understandable.
Jesus had just told them this, all authority
in heaven and on earth has been given to me.
Go therefore, make disciples of all nations,
baptizing them in the name of the Father and
of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them
to observe all that I have commanded you. Behold
I'm with you always, even to the end of the age.
Jesus very likely had these two conversations,
Acts chapter 1, Matthew 28, as one conversation.
These are both narratives of the ascension, which
we would have celebrated last Sunday. I wasn't
here with you to celebrate that, but these would
have been part of the same conversation, right?
Go! Don't depart yet. Here's part of what I'm
trying to say. There are so many things to do
as the Church. There are so many things to do
as Christians, as the people of God, sent out
into the world, touched, changed by His Word.
Those who are growing in belief and faith and
trust. Those who have had our stories re -storied
by the resurrected Christ. Those who have been
sent. These things that Marcus as a resurrection
people enlist. Just go on. We all know this is
true. Of course, this is partly why in verse
six, they say this, verse six. So when they'd
come together, they asked him, Lord, will you
at this time restore the kingdom of Israel? Which
is sort of like, let's do it. Let's go. It's
not a wild question to ask. God acted definitively
the prophets of old had said then then God would
bring his people back from exile which we don't
have time to get into how he does that in the
second chapter, but It's a very reasonable thing
to ask that let's get going It's an understandable
urgency in the disciples But the second thing
I want to say is this that there is an essential
waiting essential waiting So six again So when
they come together they asked him Lord will you
at this time restore the kingdom? To Israel he
said to them It's not for you to know the time
or seasons that the father has fixed by his own
authority but you will receive power when the
Holy Spirit has come upon you and You will be
my witnesses in Jerusalem and all Judea and Samaria
to the ends the earth. Which is interesting,
he doesn't really address their question necessarily.
He says the father knows, but he does address
what is essential for the going out, for the
doing. Turn with me in your bulletins to the
front cover. If you read these often, you will
notice there's a couple names that come up a
lot. And one of those is Leslie Newbegin, the
great missionary to India, and then to Great
Britain in the 20th century. He says this, mission,
going out of God's people, the work of God's
people in the world, it's not simply the self
-propagation of the church by putting forth the
power that inheres in its life. To accept that
picture would be to sanction an appalling distortion.
of mission. On the contrary, the active agent
of mission is a power that rules, guides, and
goes before the Church—the free, sovereign, living
power of the Spirit of God. Mission is not something
that the Church does. It is something that is
done by the Spirit, who is Himself the witness,
who changes both the world and the Church who
always goes before the Church in its missionary
journey. The truth is though that we so often
see the long list and continue the long list
and just go and do without being led. A .W. Tozer,
writing in the middle of the last century, he
wrote, if the Holy Spirit withdraws from the
church today, 95 % of what we do would go on
and nobody would know the difference. The Holy
Spirit had been withdrawn from the New Testament
Church 95 % of what they did would stop And everybody
would know the difference Jesus says in a way
you want the kingdom You want the reality of
my reign as you saw in my ministry here among
you Preaching of the kingdom lives transformed
the lame healed the dead raised, new life brought
to a strange folk like the woman with the uncontrollable
bleeding shunned from the community, or the woman
there at the well who had five husbands and the
man she was living with wasn't her husband, how
Jesus brought her and restored her to community.
You want that kind of thing, the reality of the
kingdom of God among you? The Holy Spirit. Wait.
upon the Spirit. There is no kingdom without
the Spirit of God among us. There is no going
out without the Spirit of God among us. There
is no fruitful church without the Spirit of God
among us. There's no fruitful Christian without
the Spirit of God. There is no hope. There is
no belief. There is no restoring. There is no
mission. There's none of it without the Spirit
of God. The spirit must lead in all things. Now
I'm guessing some of you, because I've had this
question posed to me a number of times, are thinking,
what is the Holy Spirit? I think I kind of get
the idea of God the Father. The Son is sent by
the Father. He has sort of an authority there.
I get the idea of Jesus and the flesh God with
us. Hard to understand, but I think I can get
my mind around a little bit. What about the spirit
Well, the first thing about the spirit is it's
a who and The second thing is God That's that's
the big thing that Christians believe about the
Holy Spirit God with us The gift of God's presence
the real presence of God with the people of God
Spirit is the reality of God with us doing what
we cannot do in and of ourselves. I think Luke
includes this whole bit about Jesus telling his
disciples not to depart because he knows what
we're inclined to do. Just go do it in and of
ourselves. We've heard these things, let's just
go share them. We've got some good ideas. We
want to do good things. Just go. We're inclined
to do even to do good things by ourselves. We're
inclined to work and to strive and to accomplish.
We are not inclined to yield, to wait. To be
okay with the timing and the work. Maybe just
the slow abiding of fruit bearing. But think
of this too. How often, when we do these things
in our own strength, in our own urgent timing,
are the fruits of the Spirit evident in the doing?
When we are eager to get something done, is love
often evident? How about peace? Is peace often
evident in the urgent doing? I mean, this almost
sounds silly. Is patience often evident in the
urge in doing? Or kindness, or goodness, or gentleness,
or faithfulness, or self -control? It's almost
laughable to think about. The fruits of the spirit
are so rarely evident when we just do do. But
they are so often evident when we wait, when
we abide. when we are patient for God among us,
when we sit with him and wait upon him. Now when
we seek to do the work of the kingdom in our
own time, in our own ways, the spirit is strikingly
absent. The fruits of the spirit are strikingly
bare. There is, that's what I'm saying, there
is an understandable urgency to the work that
we are to do, that God calls us to do and to
be as his body. But there is a necessary waiting
and if you don't do the waiting you don't do
the work But but you know what happened when
they waited So if you know what happened when
they waited and God showed up God came Descended
like he did long ago upon Mount Sinai and upon
the temple, creating new temples within the church,
his presence among his people. And that first
Pentecost Peter preached, having been restored
by Jesus and 3 ,000 people responded, what must
we do? What are we to do? They repent and they
were baptized and brought into the life of the
church. Disciples waited the church moved out
filled with the Holy Spirit Preaching but then
early on actually what we learned is that their
their economic life was transformed I'm giving
their lives The word spirit the fill with the
spirit is all over the book of Acts you think
of Stephen He filled the spirit. He was a deacon
in the early church preaching the good news and
he was stoned He had a confident Think of Jed's
sermon. Almost confident people. He had a confidence,
right? A belief that what God had done in Christ
would be done for him. He could give himself
freely and fully because the Spirit of God, God
himself, was with him. They cared for their poor.
They loved those who cursed them. They were filled
with the Spirit and they gave themselves over
to the life of the mission of God in the world.
friends It is Pentecost this morning and The
promise of Pentecost is nothing less than the
promise of Jesus. I am with you always Let's
wait on the word but then that then let's do
the work of the church with that promise of Christ,
with that reality of the Spirit, I am with you.
Amen? Lord God, we bless you. Holy Spirit, we
adore you. God, we need you. God, I pray that
for us who are so eager to just do and we see
the massive amount that there is God I pray that
you would teach us to be those who abide in you
and bear much fruit To be those who wait upon
you and yet you show up Got to be those who desire
to be this resurrected community and are because
you are with us in your Holy Spirit God we think
of foul Pentecost is leading us into what the
church often calls as Trinity time or ordinary
time or the growth time of the church. God, I
pray that this reality of your revelation to
us as Father, Son and Holy Spirit, God with us,
be the growth that we long for, that we would
bear the fruit of love and joy and peace and
patience and kindness and gentleness and faithfulness
and self -control. That you would bear much fruit
through this body and through us as individuals
God have your way with us Do what we cannot do
in and of ourselves, please Lord Bear much fruit
Through the presence of your very spirit among
us pray this the name of Jesus The one who actually
said it's better that I leave the spirit come
Amen. Thank you for listening to Second City
Sermon's podcast. We hope this sermon has encouraged
you to worship God and to celebrate the gospel
of Jesus. Please consider subscribing to this
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Thanks again for listening. God bless.